Smartphone sales up 65 percent to 23.5 million in Q3: Counterpoint

New Delhi: Growing consumer preference for Internet-enabled phones and falling prices has helped smartphone sales in India to grow 65 per cent to 23.5 million units in the third quarter of 2014, a report by Counterpoint Research said.

This is against sales of over 14 million smartphones sales in July-September 2013 period, Counterpoint said in its Market Monitor Q3 2014 Report.

On a quarter on quarter basis, sales were up over 23 per cent from about 19 million units in April-June 2014 quarter.

"The growing need for consumers flocking to the internet using mobile phones coupled with rapidly declining average selling price (ASP) of smartphones has been the key drivers of uptake of smartphones in India," Counterpoint Research Senior Consultant Tina Lu said.

The declining smartphone ASPs is result of proliferation of not only local brands entering a price-war but also the highly price-competitive Chinese brands like Xiaomi entering the Indian market, Lu added.

Korean electronics giant Samsung led the market with 25.1 per cent share of the smartphone segment in the quarter under review, falling slightly from 25.3 per cent in Q2 2014.

Homegrown firm Micromax, on the other hand, saw its share growing from 19.1 per cent in April-June 2014 to 20.4 per cent in Q3 2014.

Karbonn had 9.6 per cent share, while Motorola and Sony followed in the list with 4.7 per cent and 4.5 per cent share, respectively.

The quarter was marked with many brands now shipping more than a million smartphones per quarter joining the likes of Samsung, Micromax and Karbonn.

Helped by a leaner go-to-market strategy coupled with exciting portfolio of Moto X, G and E phones at competitive price points, Motorola shipped more than one million smartphones for the first time in a quarter in Q3 2014.

Similarly, Sony and Lava also crossed one million unit mark. Apple also crossed one million units of cumulative iPhone shipments for the first time in its fiscal year ever for India market.